


This Christmastide

by jessebee



Series: Holidays [1]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Backstory, First Kiss, First Time, Holidays, Light Angst, M/M, Music, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the DIALJ "Discovered in the Holly and Ivy" 2015</p>
<p>Anything good about this fic can be attributed to the enormously patient SlantedLight; everything hinky is completely the fault of the stubborn author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Christmastide

~~  
“Oi, what's this then? A guitar?”

Doyle rolled his eyes. “Very good, my son,” he replied, loudly enough to be heard from the kitchen. “Observational skills like that, you could work for CI5.”

“Ha ha. Well, you didn't have it before.”

Doyle finished slicing cheese and considered his one and only tomato, which looked like he felt: very, very tired. But here it was 28 December and they'd only just got their Christmas break, so doorstop sandwiches and beer was about as elaborate as dinner was going to get.

“Had it for years, mate, you just never noticed,” he said. And he _had_ had the thing since his teenage years actually, but it rarely had been left out where Bodie might have seen it, even though he couldn't make himself get rid of it. He'd rediscovered it Monday last, searching for the one box of Christmas tat he possessed, things of his mother's that he'd never quite been able to let go of either. 

And then he'd not seen _any_ of it again – decorations or guitar, never mind his bed or even his flat – until late last night.

He'd just about got everything together when he realised that Bodie hadn't answered his original question. “Carlsberg or Becks?”

“... yeh, uh, Carlsberg. Ta.”

Doyle paused in the act of gathering the beers, his eyebrows drawing together. Bodie sounded a bit – distracted? A soft twang drifted round the corner and Doyle rolled his eyes again. The prat was mucking about with the guitar.

Stacked plates and sandwiches in one hand and cans in the other, Doyle made his way into the lounge, sarky comment at the ready. Only to slow down and carefully set food and drink on the coffee table, next to the pile of crisps packets, and sink himself onto the other end of the couch, the words stopped in his throat.

Bodie'd stopped at his own flat first to shower and change out of days-old clothes, then used his keys to get in here while Doyle was in the kitchen, so Doyle hadn't seen him since they'd parted company at HQ. Doyle had gotten into his car with a hidden sigh of relief that Bodie still wished to spend the holiday in Doyle's company. His partner had been – distant – lately.

Now Bodie held the guitar cradled in his lap like a lover, dark head bent, fingers at the tuning pegs like he actually did know what he was doing. And that wasn't the whole of it.

Doyle coughed, pulled the tab on his beer and took a drink to cover it. “Colour, mate – that's a new look for you.”

“This? Nah,” Bodie said, not looking at him. “'s ancient. Back of the wardrobe. No chance to get the laundry.”

The cable-knit jumper Bodie wore was thick and heavy-looking and, in some kind of miracle, not a polo-neck; in fact the collar was just low enough to show a few links of the gold chain round Bodie's neck. Obviously old and just as obviously well-cared-for, it was a wonderfully rich, dark red, and it lay easily over Bodie's shoulders and puddled at his waist. It didn't look like ordinary wool, either, but something softer. Something … touchable. Doyle's fingers itched. He took a bite of his sandwich instead.

Not Bodie's style at all, Doyle would have said. But then – Doyle chewed and swallowed. “You sickening for something?”

Bodie did look up then, in sideways query. The angle showed up the fatigue shadows beneath his eyes quite nicely. Doyle gestured with his beer. “That sandwich is still intact.”

“Ah. Suppose I could, since you went to all the bother of makin' this posh Christmas meal,” Bodie opined, laying the guitar gently aside.

“Hey, if you don't like it --”

“Oh no, no, it's perfectly fine, my good man.” Bodie deftly intersected Doyle's mock grab and spirited the plate and contents away to safety. Doyle grinned, and for a little while the only sounds were those of the wind and rain outside as the forecast storm descended, and the food being appreciated inside. 

Sandwich disposed of, Bodie grabbed himself a bag of crisps. When those had been attended to, he drained the last of his beer, leaned back with a sigh, and closed his eyes. And belched. 

Doyle snorted. “Heathen.”

“Height of appreciation, that is.”

“Not in this country.” 

Bodie grinned, then opened his eyes and tilted his empty can in question. 

“Nah, barely started this one.” Doyle couldn't help but watch as Bodie heaved himself to his feet and headed for the kitchen, because Bodie was wearing jeans as well – the story about his laundry must be true. His partner rarely admitted to owning blue jeans, never mind wearing them. The times he had were burned into Doyle's memory, because the denim fabric showed off Bodie's – assets – in a way his other trousers never quite managed.

Christ. Doyle set his half-full can on the coffee table, dropped his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, making sure that his own well-worn green sweater was pulled down over his crotch. Oh, he hated this – well, no. That wasn't the right word, because it was worth the ache and the strain of hiding his feelings to have Bodie in his life, to horde these private, unguarded moments his partner gave to no-one else. Even more precious and painful were the times when Bodie lost the “matey” mask and his affection for Doyle showed through. Bodie loved him, Doyle knew that.

It just wasn't the same way Doyle loved him.

Bodie loved him as a friend and best mate, and that would have to be enough. Doyle would stay silent the rest of his days if that was what it took to keep Bodie here, like this. 

No, he didn't hate this at all. But he was tired, and the stress was beginning to tell.

And maybe he dropped off for a few minutes, because the next things he heard were strings being tuned, and soft chords. Doyle pried his eyes open. Bodie had resumed his spot on the couch and was bent over the guitar again, picking slowly but surely. Doyle rubbed one eye. “You're almost convincing me you might know what to do with that.”

“Hm.” The overhead light glossed the fine waves in Bodie's hair, and the jumper's colour warmed his skin, and for a moment he didn't look like Doyle's tough-as-leather partner but more like some beatnik musician in a backstreet club. “Shouldn't keep the strings tight, sunshine, the tension's bad for the neck.”

At least three pithy replies leaped up for that and Doyle opened his mouth, and then shut it, considering. What if …? “Yeah? So, play us a tune,” he said softly.

Bodie's gaze snapped up to meet Doyle's, startled, as if he'd only just realized what he'd been doing, and Doyle saw the suspicion there. You could fall right into those eyes, Doyle thought, not for the first time; deep lake-water blue fringed with the longest eyelashes he'd ever seen wasted on a bloke. 

Doyle looked back and worked on not drowning. _No trap, mate, not taking the piss, I swear_.

“You play?”

Doyle rolled his head against the back of the couch. “Played _at_ it for a while.” A soft snort. “Eventually worked out I wasn't gonna be the next John Lennon. You?”

Bodie shrugged one shoulder and looked back down at the guitar. His broad hands moved, pale against the guitar's mellow patina, pulling increasingly complex sounds from it. “Used to. Not much call for it in … Don't know that I remember much.”

_C'mon_ , Doyle urged silently. “More than I ever knew to forget, sounds like.” Their usual give-and-take wouldn't work here, he sensed, but open honesty might. _C'mon, sunshine_. This was a side of Bodie that Doyle had caught only ever caught a few faint glimpses of; as far as he'd known, his partner didn't play anything but cricket and the radio.

Bodie didn't look up, but he took a breath, and settled his shoulders. 

The rain drummed against the windows, gusting with the wind, but the flat was warm and Bodie was filling the space close around them with sound. Doyle shifted sideways and pulled his legs up under him, listening. It was … not slow, exactly, but a formal sort of sound, something older, the sort of thing Henry VIII danced to in films. Made him think of courts and stately rounds. “What is that?”

“Pavane.”

A what? “Nice, that,” he said truthfully. “Wasn't expecting something classical.”

“I'm a class act, Doyle.” 

“In your own class, certainly,” Doyle came back, and got a half-smile and raised eyebrow. “Thought you'd play rock.”

“Wasn't his thing.”

His? “Teacher?”

“Me uncle. Learned it in Spain, apparently,” Bodie said, his accent sliding northward, “made a livin' out of it, over there.” The long mouth tightened. The pavane-thing drifted into something that might have been random chording, or might not.

“And?” Doyle asked, after a minute.

“Came back 'ere t' help mam after me dad died, and then both of them went in the car wreck few years later. I took off to sea after that.”

Something barbed wrapped round Doyle's heart and squeezed. “Ah. Sorry, mate.”

One red-clad shoulder lifted in a shrug, as if it didn't matter. Doyle wanted, very badly, to hug him. “Know any Christmas songs?” he asked finally. It wasn't what he wanted to say.

But Bodie's mouth quirked upward, as if he'd heard the other words anyway. 

The chords shifted, moving upward and down again, and settled into the gentle lines of _Lo, How A Rose_. The occasional off note and uneven tempo didn't make much difference, and Doyle drifted with the music as Bodie moved into _The Holly And Ivy_. He was humming by the end of that, and right into _In The Bleak Midwinter_ , and when he heard the beginning phrases of _The First Noel_ , he dared to open his mouth. Bodie was giving him something rare and precious; Doyle had to try to give something back.

He'd not sung – not seriously and sober – since he'd told the Church to fuck off when he'd been eleven and broken his mother's heart, but apparently all that choir training had not completely gone, either. The first verse was rough but the words were there, and by the second verse he was breathing as he should. His voice was rubbish now, he knew, years of shouting at villains had finished what having his face smashed had started. But Bodie – oh, Bodie was watching him and they were together, in sync here as ever on the job and Bodie was _looking_ at him, as if, as if – 

The last chords died away, leaving only the rumble of rain pounding on the roof, and still Bodie was looking at him as if he, Ray Doyle, was some kind of amazing revelation. It was making Doyle nervous as hell. “What? I know that was bad, but --”

Bodie was shaking his head and laying the guitar aside, and resettling on the couch a lot closer than he should be. “Shut up, Ray. And do me a favour.”

“Well, when you ask like that ...” The next words choked in Doyle's throat as Bodie cupped his chin in one hand. Blue eyes searched his, warm and searching. Finding. Knowing. Doyle froze.

“Just – give me a minute or two before you kill me, eh?” Bodie whispered, and leaned in. 

Bodie's mouth was warm and firm as it pressed against Doyle's. Bodie was kissing him. _Bodie_ was _kissing_ – heat ran up under Doyle's skin and he gasped. Bodie murmured something and pressed harder, and just the tip of his tongue slipped in touch Doyle's.

The taste went through Doyle like an electric shock. He jerked back to stare. Bodie's eyes were wide and shocked as well and he was _looking_ at Doyle again, like – “Bloody hell,” Doyle whispered. “Bodie?”

“Hell,” Bodie echoed, faintly. And then his eyes kindled and he smiled like all his Christmases had come at once.

Doyle put both hands on Bodie's arms and slid them up, up knitted softness and into equally soft, short hair, and pulled his partner in.

oOo

 

“Didn't know you could sing like that, angelfish,” Bodie said, a long while later, his breath warm against Doyle's collarbone.

“Lots you don't know, apparently,” Doyle teased, lazily, watching the gleam of his bracelet against Bodie's tousled hair, silver against black in the soft light of the bedside lamp.

“Hm. Gonna be fun finding it all out.” Bodie levered up on one elbow to look down at him, traced a fingertip gently around the curve of Doyle's jaw and down his throat. “Prezzie I can unwrap again and again.”

Doyle smiled up at him, helplessly full of a joy so complete that left no room for anything else. “Many times as it takes you to get it right.”

Bodie's own smile turned hot. “That a challenge?”

“Yeah,” Doyle breathed. “Happy Christmas, mate.”

 

end

**Author's Note:**

>  _green and silver, red and gold,_  
>  and a story born of old  
> truth, and love, and hope abide  
> this Christmas-tide  
> (Donald Fraser)
> 
>  
> 
> This Christmastide  
> (for the DIALJ Holly and Ivy, 2015)  
> 12/26/15
> 
> I still blame SlantedLight for this.... *g*


End file.
